Civita di Bagnoregio

Rick Steves, the expert on traveling through Europe through the "back door", raves about a little hill town called Civita di Bagnoregio, which it turns out is a 40 minute bus ride away from Viterbo. I posted a sign at school telling students I was going and asked if any of them wanted to come along. 11 of them and I got to see the most charming small hill town there is.

Steves in his book describes how the two towns Civita and Bagnoregio were at one time linked with Civita being the more predominant of the two. However, geologic erosion took over and the land bridge that linked the two slowly disappeared and Bagnoregio became the main town and Civita, the suburb that has been dubbed, "the dying town". It is dying as there are no young people who live in this hill town and it literally is crumbling away. The day was overcast but as were leaving, this is what we saw....

The hill town of Civita as seen from the end of Bagnoregio. Can you believe the luck we had in seeing it as the rainbow appeared?

This modern footbridge was constructed in 1947.

The town of Bagnoregio is hidden in the trees

The cliff face of Civita

The arch entrance to the town of Civita. Notice in above the arch the guardian lions. Thanks to Art History class, I know the significance of those. Pictured is Alysa J. from Brooklyn, NY.

The town takes no more than five minutes to walk from one end to the other. At the far end lives Maria (she is pictured in Steves' guidebooks) and she is one of the two residents who was born in Civita. She has a wonderful garden that has great views. For 1 Euro, you can go and see it.

I think this is Maria's house

Maria's cliff top garden

The view from Maria's house looks like a mini-Grand Canyon. There are two rivers that flow on either side of Civita that eroded away the countryside and left this hill town.





The tools in Maria's garden

I believe this is a pestle?

Next to Maria's house is a small restaurant in which there is this old time giant olive press. Apparently donkeys used to walk in circles and thereby press the olives.

At the far end of Civita the path starts to go downhill...

It leads to an ancient cave from Etruscan times. This cave was also used for hiding during WWII

Entrance to the cave.

What are students looking at?

They are watching a couple of their peers climb into this cave within a cave. But after a few minutes, the two who climbed in jumped out due to the bugs and spiders within. It was funny, you had to be there.

Steves' book mentions an old laundry, I think this is it, but I can't be sure.

(From left) Maddie L. of Kentucky, Collin W. of Virginia, Katie C. of California, Anna S. of Hawaii, Peter M. of New Jersey, Penny B. of Texas, Tori H. of California and Steve C. of Minnesota. Missing are Jade O. of Hawaii, Sara B. of New Mexico and Alysa J. of New York

I have to include this picture because I ate processed food for the first time since I landed on the European continent. Notice the BRILLIANCE of the hot dogs here. They take a baguette and cut off the top, then impale the bread on a stick and then spoon the ketchup and condiments into the tube and then stick the hot dog in. No mess!! The Europeans, you have to say they improve on American ideas sometimes, and this is one of them

One Last Oktoberfest Posting

A Video Clip from Henry that does better justice as to the what happens inside the tent at Oktoberfest.

And Now A Word From Cousin Henry

An Oktoberfest story as relayed by a live witness....Paul, by the way, was the Chinese speaking German in the previous post

"So, here’s the story of our encounter with the Chinese-speaking German kids. We were waiting to enter the Paulaner tent at Oktoberfest and were approached by 3 German kids who had just returned from studying abroad in Beijing. These guys were 18 years old. Paul spoke the best Chinese by far and was rather talkative in Chinese. During our conversation, Paul mentioned that his “fu mu” were still in Beijing. Ernie had a surprised look on his face and said “Oh, you’re married?!” Confused, I directed my attention to Ernie and mentioned that “fu mu” means parents. Obviously, Ernie thought “fu mu” = wife or spouse. Paul’s face lit up and he emphatically said to Ernie “Dude, your Chinese sucks man!” To hear this from a German native less than ½ of Ernie’s age really was a humorous way to start our day at Oktoberfest.

It was one of those situations you just had to witness. I laughed so hard I thought the hotdog I just ate would come up."

Munich -- Part 3

Here it is.....Oktoberfest pictures.

Oktoberfest ends on the first weekend in October. Henry, Roland and I attended on the final Saturday. Wall-to-wall people.

About one-third of attendees wore traditional dirndls and lederhosen

Oktoberfest is like most fairs where games are played and prizes to be won.

This ride was a favorite as participants had to successfully step on an upward moving beltway to get to a platform where they could slide down. About half of the participants would fall down upon standing on the moving ramp. Women, however, were escorted up by the ticket takers.

Traditional Bavarian dining. I had one but Henry and Roland were intimidated by it.

Henry goes for the wurst.

My half eaten pretzel.

Each brewery has a large tent in which range in size from seating 1,000 to 8,500 beer swilling customers. We took in line for about an hour before getting into the Paulaner tent.

While standing in line, we began chatting with these three German boys who spoke fluent Chinese.

Here's what it looks like inside a beer tent.

The rule is that when the band is playing, no beer is served as...

...too many people are dancing on tables, benches and in the aisles. The band played traditional Bavarian/German songs as well as the occasional Bob Marley and for some reason John Denver's "Country Roads". I remember back when I was here in 1986, that song was popular then as well. Have these people ever BEEN to West Virginia?

A common sight

It's ok for me to post this as Henry has made it his Facebook profile picture.

PROSIT!!!

Munich -- Part 2

A half hour train ride from Munich is the town of Dachau. If that sounds familiar, it's because the town was the location of one of the major concentration camps during the Nazi reign from 1933-1945.

This plan shows what the Dachau camp looked like at its "height." The barracks where the detainees were held are closest to the and the SS homes are further back.

This map shows all the the camps and subcamps that were run by the Nazi's.

This index shows that not all concentration camps were death camps. In fact, very few were death camps. Dachau was a work camp, meaning that detainees were brought here essentially as slaves and their worked benefited the Nazi state and regime.

Auschwitz, you'll see has a "V", which indicates it was a camp where prisoners were sent to their deaths.

A prisoner could be brought to Dachau and then sent to one of many subcamps in the area. These other subcamps could be factories or for any reason and were held as few as 20 detainees.

The majority of prisoners entered the Dachau camp through this entryway.

They would see this, which means "Work makes you free."

Each and every morning and evening the prisoners would have to line up on this large area (we're seeing only half of it in this photo) to be accounted for. In 1933-35, the camp had some 10,000 prisoners, but by the mid-1940's Dachau had some 60,000 persons.

During roll call, those that incurred infractions (at the beginning for things as minor as not making their bed) would be publicly whipped on this table or one like it.

One of seven watchtowers that are along the wall of the camp.

In the twelve years of camp, only one man escaped. There was a moat on both sides of the barbed wire fence.

Here is the remains of one of the shower rooms. This room is now in the museum.

In the years after the camp was liberated, the barracks were torn down. Here is the footprint of the 28 barracks. In 1965, a committee of Dachau survivors had two of the barracks rebuilt,

Inside the barracks, one can see what the living conditions were like.

Can you imagine what these would have been like with some 2,000 people sharing them?

One of the many sculptures that serve memory of the atrocities that happened on this site.

Those who were brought here were not just Jews. Everyone who was brought there was given a sign to wear on their clothing indicating why there were at Dachau. In the beginning, most were political prisoners and they were given red triangles. Criminals were given a color, Jews, were given the star of David, but if they were also here for another reason, their star had two colors. Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses (because they refused to take an oath to the Nazi's) were here as well. Homosexuals were given pink triangles, which is the origin of the pink triangle of the gay rights movement.

Although not a death camp, there was a crematorium on site.

The crematorium was used for those who passed away at Dachau. But there were times when it was used simply to put some detainees to death. It was not, however, used for mass killings. The SS kept records and with the discovery of mass graves, it is estimated that some 41,000 people died or were killed while at Dachau.

This was the disinfecting room. Notice the hooks for their clothes.

This is the entrance to the gassing room, although it says over the door that it's a bathing room.

The gassing room.

The ovens. In the later years, due to coal shortages, these ovens weren't used so bodies were dumped into mass graves.

On the other end of the Dachau camp, here is the housing for the SS troops and officers.

This is Roland and Henry looking sheepish as they admit that their iPhone GPS systems directed us to the wrong train station. Sometimes....

However, with every detour there is a silver lining. We saw this spray painter at work. You never seen any graffiti in Germany and here was some being created.